A Little Bit of an AU
by madelinesticks
Summary: A world where John sends Sam and Dean to stay with Crowley, and a world where angels are pets.


Dean was trying not to stare, he really was. Staring was rude. He was clinging to his Dad's leg, hiding his face in the fabric of the jeans.  
The other man didn't wear jeans. He wore a suit. A really nice one. Dean would never cling to those trousers like he would Dad's. They looked expensive.  
The other boy didn't seem to care about that. He had a little hand fisted in the fabric, just above the man's knee. He didn't know staring was rude. Or if he did, he didn't care. He was staring at Dean with curious, wide eyes. They were a bright blue, and they were kinda pretty.  
"This is Crowley, Dean." John said. "He's gonna take you and Sam so I can go find Mom."  
Mom had disappeared when Sam was a baby. Dean missed her lots. She had hugged him and smelled of violets and he loved her. But Dean didn't wanna lose Dad too. He bit his lip, but he couldn't cry, not like a baby, and especially not in front of this new man.  
"And this is Castiel." Crowley's voice was deep, scary, and Dean hugged his Dad's leg even tighter.  
"Don't act like a baby, Dean." Dad cajoled him lightly, and Dean flushed and let go of Dad's pant leg, offering a trembling hand to shake.  
Crowley grinned, bending to one knee and shaking Dean's hand with his much bigger one. He didn't wear a ring like Dad did, but his watch was shiny.  
"Cas." Crowley said. The other boy stepped forward and shook Dean's hand, face expressionless.  
"Hello, Dean."  
"Hi." Dean blushed again and ran back, hiding his face in Dad's jeans again.  
"He's not normally like this." Dad said, adjusting the way he held Sammy.  
"He's a boy, darling, I hardly expect different. Best put them in their rooms, hmm? So we can, ah, talk." Dad looked sad. But he nodded and followed Crowley - Crowley was shorter than Dad, but he didn't /act/ short, and Dean liked that even though he was scary - to the "rooms".  
Dean thought Crowley's house was expensive. He wouldn't wanna touch any of the stuff in case he broke it.  
Castiel kept close to Crowley as they walked. Behind them, Dean could see white puffs of air hovering at the other boy's back. Curiously, he reached to touch them, but Castiel yelped and ran away, hiding by the couch and looking at Dean with wide, fearful eyes.  
"Oh, Cas." Crowley murmured, crouching and opening his arms. Castiel dashed forward and hid his face in Crowley's expensive suit, trembling a little. When the man stood, it was with the other boy in his arms.  
"Dean, I need to explain something to you and Sam." Sam was only two, and Dean didn't think he would get anything Crowley tried to explain.  
"Castiel is an angel. Those are his wings and they're very sensitive. You can't ever touch them without permission, alright?" Crowley looked Dean in the eyes as he said it. Dean knew that angels were different to humans. They were stupid, he thought, cos lots of the time they didn't get stuff, but Dad said they were really helpful. They had wings, he knew, and he felt stupid for nor realising Cas must be an angel.  
"Y-Y-Yes, sir." Dean mumbled, nodding.  
Dean really liked the room Crowley showed him into afterward. It had cars on the walls- really cool ones! - and there was a fire engine picture and there were toy cars and a clean carpet and his bed was blue and green and he could see the whole city outta the window!  
Sammy's room was boring though. It had baby stuff like dinosaurs on the walls, and he had a jigsaw rug on the floor.  
In between their rooms there was a sofa and a coffee table, and there was a toybox that was full of awesome stuff. There was another door on the third wall,whereas the other one sort of joined onto a bigger room with a TV. Crowley didn't show them that room.  
"See, Dean? Crowley got Sammy and you right on with your rooms, right?" Dad smiled.  
"Yeah," Dean mumbled, reluctantly. "But I wanna stay wiv you and find Mom."  
"I'm sorry, kiddo. It's not safe. And you'll have way more fun here."  
Sammy sat on the floor of the toy box room, playing with building blocks. He looked happy, smiling and bashing the blocks together. Dean wanted Sammy to be happy too.  
"Okay." He whispered, trying real hard not to cry. "You'll come back, right? Visit lots and lots?"  
"Yeah, kiddo. Of course I will." he nodded.  
"'Kay then." Dean mumbled. Dad knelt and Dean rushed forward, hugging him tightly.  
"I love you, Dean. Don't you forget."  
"I won't." Dean promised.  
He did cry when Dad left. But it didn't last too long, and he quickly wiped his eyes and turned to his new guardian.  
Crowley offered a smile.  
"Come on, child. You can play with your brother and with my Cas, hmm? And we'll settle down for tea in a few hours." Dean nodded slowly.  
Him and Sam played wrestle. Sam liked it, but he never won. When Cas came into the toy box room from the third door, Sam tackled him down, climbing atop him.  
Cas didn't react like Dean did. He didn't push Sam off or scramble out from under him or roll them over to pin Sam down.  
He mewled and bared his neck, trembling. Sam was confused. Dean moved forward and pulled Sam off the angel.  
"It's just a game, Cas." Crowley told the fledgling. "You and Sam and Dean are equal here. You don't need to submit to anyone else." Castiel looked up at Crowley with wide eyes.  
"Yes."  
Angels were weird, Dean decided.

Dean didn't sleep well that night. As much as he'd coveted the idea, he was no longer used to having his own room. He was used to his Dad's snuffly snores and Sam's light whiffling of breath near him.  
And it was far from silent, even through the closed door of Dean's bedroom. Twice, Sam started crying. Both times, he heard the third door open - leading to both Castiel's room and to Crowley's, Dean guessed - and he would hear Crowley comfort Sam.  
He didn't do it like Dad did. He didn't talk about Mom, or hush Sam. The first time, he just started speaking. Not in a language Dean had ever heard though. It was a weird sound, but it fit with Crowley's voice, and he spoke it as fluently as he did his English. It sounded like a story, but Dean couldn't be sure.  
Dean liked the second one a whole lot more. It was about two hours later, but Crowley didn't speak in the language. He sung.  
He wasn't really a very good singer, Dean thought. Not like Mom was. His voice was low and soothing though, even in the weird tongue.  
Dean fell asleep.

Crowley had them eat at a table for breakfast. Castiel sat to the side of Crowley, chair scooted close, with Dean on the other side. Sam had a high chair, next to their new guardian, but he said that Sam would sit next to Dean when he was older.  
Dean liked Crowley's breakfast. Castiel had a sweet, honeyed porridge, and ate it without ever getting any on his face or anything. Dean had bacon and eggs and toast with jam and marmalade, and a kind of fish called kippers that Crowley made him try. Dean found he liked kippers. And marmalade.  
"I heard you talkin' to Sammy last night." Dean said for the second time. The first time he'd said it around a mouthful of toast, and Crowley hadn't liked that. He wasn't to talk with food in his mouth.  
"You did?" Crowley asked, somewhat expectantly. "And?"  
"What- what was you saying to Sammy? An' the song?"  
Castiel placed his spoon, licked clean, next to his bowl and pushed them away.  
"Good boy." Crowley murmured, petting through Cas' hair. "It was Gaelic, Dean. It's a language they speak in Scotland. I was taught it when I was a boy, at school."  
"You're not English?" Dean asked, before eating some more bacon. Dad had said Crowley was English.  
"No. I'm Scottish. I was born in Glasgow, which is big city in Scotland, and then my family had to move down to London for a time." Crowley leaned forward to wipe Sam's mouth. "And then, when I was eight, we moved back up to North, to a little village. I'll show you where they are later, on a map." Dean nodded. He felt full, now, so he pushed his plate away. Crowley nodded.  
Dean was kinda glad he didn't pet his hair like he had with Cas.

They weren't gonna go to school, him and Sammy. Crowley was gonna homeschool them with Cas.  
Dean knew his letters. He struggled a bit with reading though. Crowley was gonna help him with that. And numbers too.  
Castiel could read. And do math. While Crowley helped Dean, having the boy sit next to him with the book across their laps, Cas curled at Crowley's foot and read his own book.  
Dean decided, a few days later, that Cas was weird. He cried out if Sam or Dean touched him without warning to begin with, but he got better at it.  
He liked to read. And he liked to be next to Crowley. All the time. Mostly, he curled at the other's feet.

One night, there was a big crash in the kitchen.  
Dean got out of bed and ran to look. The third door was open, and when he got to the kitchen, Dean saw a flannel pyjama-ed Crowley holding a sobbing Castiel in his arms. Speaking softly and gently rocking the angel, Crowley glanced at Dean and indicated for the boy to wait a second.  
He put Cas down on the side, where the angel whimpered and shivered, before quickly moving to pick up the pieces of glass that had broken when Cas had knocked them off the draining board. The angel had gone for a glass of water, Dean guessed.  
Crowley scooped Cas back into his arms, then, and took Dean back to his room. With the boy settled, Crowley sat at the foot of his bed with Castiel curled against his chest.  
"What do you know about angels, Dean?" Crowley asked, soothingly carding through Castiel's hair.  
"They're different to humans an' they got wings an' they're really smart but kinda stupid at jokes an' stuff." Dean mumbled, looking down.  
Crowley nodded.  
"Now, Dean." Crowley said quietly. "Cas isn't like you or like Sam. Angels aren't the same as humans. Cas is a lot more tactile than human children. He needs to be by me all the time because we're bonded together. Cas is mine. He's almost like a pet."  
"Like- Like a dog, or a cat?" Dean asked.  
"More intelligent, he's magical, and he's less willing to be independent. But yes, similar. Now, not all angels are like this. Some are… Well, rambunctious and active."  
Dean nodded slowly. Castiel went limp in Crowley's arms, falling asleep.  
"Now, before he was with me, Cas was with a bloke called Alastair, along with some other young fledglings. And Alastair was a bad, bad man. He was cruel to them. Now, Castiel tends toward jittering if he thinks he's gonna be punished. You get it?"  
"Yeah." Dean nodded.  
"Now go to to sleep, darling." Crowley said quietly. Dean dropped to sleep fairly quickly after that.

Dad came to visit them four months after leaving them. He hadn't found Mom. He brought Dean a toy Impala though, and Sammy got an angel plushie.

Dean enjoyed staying with Crowley, mostly. He was lots nicer with playing and toys, and he told real awesome stories, about dragons and giants and fairies and stuff. Castiel was always enraptured when Crowley told stories. And he taught Dean his words and his letters and most importantly Sammy loved Crowley.  
But Crowley did correct Dean on words a lot, and he punished Dean for breaking rules by making him face the wall.  
At least he didn't punish Dean like he did Cas though. Sam had tackled the angel again and, startled, Castiel had used his angel magic to throw him off. Only a few feet away, and Sam wasn't hurt, but Cas wasn't supposed to use his angel magic in the house.  
After running over to make sure Sam was OK, and getting the other boy to stop crying, and after apologising profusely, he ran to Crowley and let out a little sob before telling the man what he'd done.  
Dean didn't get why Cas had done that, when he could've gotten away with it.  
Crowley had put Cas over his lap and spanked him, making the angel sob and whimper. After, he mewled and hid his face in Crowley's shoulders, mumbling apologies for breaking the rules.  
Crowley had told Dean afterward that angels were very touch-orientated and took in lessons like that more than they did being put in the corner.

When Dean was ten, and Sam was six, he'd had his first real argument with Crowley. Sammy wanted to go to school, and Crowley said no, but Dean thought Sam'd do good at school.  
"The answer is no, Dean."  
"But that's not fair! He wants to go!"  
"If every man got what they wanted, the world would be a horrible place."  
"Why not?"  
"Because it's not safe! You think the men that took your mother did it on a whim!?" Dean had ran to his room after that.  
Crowley had come in after a few hours. "We can make a group, hmm? He, and you, can meet up with other kids without having to go to school." Dean hesitated, then nodded.  
He liked the kids in the group. Jo and Ash were Ellen's kids, and they were really cool. Dean thought they were a bit odd, Ash was, anyway, but he liked them.  
Jess was kinda annoying, but she was Sammy's age, and Garth was Sam's age too. Garth and Becky, another girl, creeped Dean out though.  
So he stuck with Jo and Ash.

Castiel huddled on the sofa, wrapped in two of Crowley's shirts. Their guardian had gone on a weekend business trip, leaving Dean in charge.  
He didn't often have to go anywhere, mostly sticking home and working from his computer, but apparently this conference was quite important.  
Crowley couldn't take Cas, usually. The angel didn't do well without his master, keeping Crowley's shirts tight around him and taking in their scent.  
Sam was staying at the Harvelle's for the night. He loved Jo and Ash, and Ellen too, so he stayed with them now and again.  
Jo and Ash stayed at theirs sometimes, but Jo didn't like Crowley much - even though Dean was pretty sure Ash would give up even his precious computer to chat to Crowley for a few hours.  
Dean settled on the other sofa, and for a moment, Cas stayed as he was. Then he shot to Dean, giving a little mewl before burying his head in the crook of Dean's neck, trembling.  
Dean swallowed. This wasn't like Sam. Not like Sam at all. This felt /good/. Castiel curled a leg over Dean's, his wings curving inwards to cover Dean's chest.  
"It's OK, Cas." Dean murmured, stroking through Cas' hair in a calming way even though he kind of wanted to kiss him.  
The angel started sobbing. Dean winced, and held him tighter.

When the door opened, and Crowley came in, Castiel had drifted into a fitful sleep, curled tightly around Dean like a squid. Dean had fallen asleep too, his head dropping down to rest atop Cas'.  
Crowley stared at the two of them for a moment, plainly amused. Then, he moved forward, gently extricating Cas' limbs from Dean's and carrying the angel to bed, setting him down gently on the mattress. The angel gave a little mewl, still asleep, and snuggled into the pillow.  
Crowley shook Dean awake, and the boy blinked up at him, eyes bleary.  
"Crowley?"  
"Go to bed, Dean. Thank you for looking after Cas." Dean nodded slowly.  
"S'okay. He cried a lot. Missed you."  
Crowley looked sad, at that. "He does tend to sob. You helped him though." He murmured, quietly. "Off to bed now."  
Dean nodded, too tired to argue.

Time passed pretty quickly, really. Dean started to see Cas… A little different. It was weird, but he'd kinda figured out the /real/ point of angels.

At sixteen, Castiel had matured well. He was thin, lightly muscled at Crowley's behest, and fairly tall. Next to Crowley, anyway.  
He was pretty, too. Blue-eyed with such a lovely mouth and the curves of his jaw were to die for.  
Dean wanted Cas. Fuck, but he wanted an angel. He knew what angels were for, now.  
He'd tried to tempt the other boy. Jerked off with the door a little open when Crowley and Sam went to the freaking farmer's market. Castiel had just flushed and ran into the room he and Crowley shared.  
Crowley had fucked him. Dean knew it. When Cas was fifteen he'd /begged/ for it. Dean had heard him through the walls.  
Cas had begged so pretty for cock. Even Crowley's.  
Dean tried to tease in other ways. Wore tight shirts and jeans, began to work out. He got muscles.  
Didn't work. It only got raised eyebrows and chuckles from his guardian.  
John had died years back, so Crowley was all they had, now. Crowley liked Sam and Dean, he could tell. He treated them as sons.  
Sam had a college fund. Dean had a car fund.  
Dean had laughed at that. But then, parts for the '67 Chevy Impala his dad had left him weren't cheap.  
But Dean wanted someone trembling, quivering beneath him, begging for /his/ fingers, /his/ cock.  
It was a last resort.  
But he /wanted/.  
So, he tried kissing Castiel. Pressed him against the wall and tried to blow his mind.  
Cas had whimpered and turned his head away. Dean hated it. He knew Crowley had ordered him not to even look at anyone else, let alone reciprocate a kiss.

"Castiel told me something last night, Dean." Crowley sounded annoyed, his tone terse. Fucking possessive dick.  
"Yeah?" Dean looked up from his laptop.  
"Don't be so cruel to the boy, Dean. You know he won't melt. Leave him be. I had him on my lap in tears, because he thinks it's his fault, that he disobeyed orders, that he should be punished!" Crowley growled out. "He withers when he's ashamed, Dean, and I hate it."  
"Which is why," Crowley murmured, after a considerable pause. "I've decided you should get your own angel. And one for Sam too, but more as a companion." Dean looked up, shocked.  
"Crowley, no, it's OK; they're real expensive and I'm sorry-"  
"No, Dean. Besides, they're angels you don't know. I wouldn't worry about yours being too much yet."  
Dean stared.  
"Yeah, but they're exp-"  
"I sha'n't hear another word, Dean."  
Crowley stood and left the room, and Dean heard Castiel's footsteps on the floor and the sound of him barrelling into his master.  
Castiel lived for Crowley. Would Dean ever have someone devoted to him like that?

Balthazar, the angel Crowley had got for him, was not really what Dean would ever have expected.  
Castiel's brother, but he didn't look the same at all, just like Gabriel, who was Sam's, looked different to both of them.  
And Balthazar wasn't meek like Cas was. Balthazar swore and sprawled across both Dean and the bed and he tackled Dean and teased him.  
This wasn't what angels were supposed to be like. Dean loved it.  
Balthazar whined if Dean didn't fuck around with him. Honest to fuck /whined/, and constantly complained. And if that didn't work, the angel teased. Drawled out promises and draped himself over Dean, pressing kisses along his jawline and leaving slight stubble burn.  
Dean liked that, too.  
He supposed it wasn't all that usual to bottom for angels, or to let them take charge. But Dean didn't really care - Balthazar fucking him was awesome.

Balthazar was on Dean's lap. Dean still wasn't really sure how the angel managed to fold himself up enough to fit, but he did.  
He had his face buried in Dean's shoulder, breathing deeply and purring like a cat. Balthazar had said scent was quite important to angels, and that when Dean was close like this, Balthazar felt warm and good and content.  
Castiel was lying on the other sofa, his head nestled in Crowley's lap as his master read. Cas had his eyes closed, but Dean didn't think he was asleep because whenever Crowley stoked over his feathers the angel made little noises.  
Gabriel had curled into a tight ball next to Sam on the floor. He didn't like to be cuddled much, Dean noticed. He didn't mind when Sam petted through his hair, but mostly he preferred active, reciprocal touching.  
Sam loved Gabriel already, Dean could see. Gabriel would make jokes and tackle Sam at random and he had this odd obsession with candy.  
He was smart, too, but regularly demanded that Sam read aloud to him. At least he was happy.  
They all were.


End file.
